You are a robot in an office building. You have to eat furniture and not get caught. A mysterious story unfolds. Not The Robots is this year’s most exciting Roguelike Stealth Furniture Eating Simulator. It’s a game with random levels, permadeath, and the goal of eating furniture. Same furniture is also your stealth cover.

Recommended By Curators

October 12, 2014

You can now draw your own layouts for custom maps (while still making use of the game's procedural-content-based trappings) - for bonus points, you can now also export/import your custom challenges to share them with others!

Reviews

About This Game

You are a robot in an office building. You have to eat furniture and not get caught. A mysterious story unfolds.

Not The Robots is this year’s most exciting Roguelike Stealth Furniture Eating Simulator. It’s a game with random levels, permadeath, and the goal of eating furniture. Same furniture is also your stealth cover.

About 2DArray

About tinyBuild GAMES

tinyBuild GAMES is an indie game development and publishing company. No Time To Explain is their first game. It came out of a successful Kickstarter and Greenlight adventure. They're currently working on a bunch of games:

Not The Robots is a breath of fresh air, and has some of the most tense stealth gameplay I've seen in a while. You play as a table leg on a ballpoint, being a complete jerk that eats all the office furniture. It does not allow you to get comfortable and swing into a set pattern when you start collecting cool toys. No, it throws a lot of ♥♥♥♥ at you, and it keeps throwing more and more variables at you until you have to become a robot contortionist just to get to the next level. The game has a point system that unlocks more terrifying ♥♥♥♥ along with cool toys and audio logs (that slowly tell a story that doesn't really come together until the last two are collected), but it still won't allow you to beat the game easily.

So what are the things that make me want to throw shade on it? The level randomization will occasionally laugh in your face and dump a bunch of obstacles at the beginning of the level. Sentries have unlimited line-of-sight, which makes stealth harder than it needs to be. And the experience point system should be turned off once all the cool XP-related bonuses are collected, because it gets in the way once it's no longer needed in more ways than one (end-of-level bonus boxes contain all sorts of neat stuff! Including multiplier bonuses, whether you want them or not!)

All of these are minor quibbles. Not The Robots is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ fantastic, relentless, and it won't ♥♥♥♥ing let up on you until you die or you kill it.

Excellent game that tries a lot of interesting mechanics I haven't seen before, and pulls them off very well.

It's a procedurally generated stealth game where you must consume your cover to progress. The guards have unlimited sight range and their patrol patterns change on the fly. This makes the game enjoyably tense, and the procedural generation churns out a fair bit of variety. Being spotted is not an automatic death sentence, and scrambling to meet the level goal while pursued by alert guards is a common occurence and a big part of the game's appeal.

The procedural level generation works surprisingly well for a stealth game - everything from layouts to cover to enemy composition to level goals is put together from random parts, resulting in levels that shake up your tactics (or are borderline impossible on higher difficulties). The layouts of levels, cover and guards vary dramatically

The game can be described as "layered" - the more you play it and the further you progress, the more layers unlock. More enemies, items and hazards in the campaign, more optional challenges, and more story elements. Even as the campaign "levels up" and becomes harder, you can still control it with difficulty levels, which range from "relatively stress-free" to "not even remotely fair".

The story deserves a separate mention. It's completely optional and out of the way - in fact, you'll need to put some effort into putting it all together - but it completely changes the atmosphere of the game. Your first impression of the game will be that of an goofy, arbitrary world where you are are a robot that sneaks around eating furniture in office buildings. As the story comes together, it justifies most of game's arbitrary mechanics and reveals the game world as somewhat dark place.

The game explores its ideas to the fullest, and feels like a labor of love the developer enjoyed working on. I normally dislike rogue-lite games, but I had a blast with this one.

You are a defenseless robotic exclamation mark valiantly trying to help hoarders declutter their office by eating their furniture.

Your goal is to collect enough food to move to the next level or the next office building while dodging rotating lasers, staying out of sight of patrolling floating robot skulls, navigating moving barriers and other obstacles. There are other objectives you will need to complete as well as collecting enough food, like: tagging the rotating lasers and activating sequenced floor plates. You can collect powerups like 1-ups, the ability to become invisible and place blocks, and eat walls (the most useful one). The story is told through auidologs and it's mostly played for laughs, it's pretty entertaining. The graphics are really slick and the music/sound is passable. The really novel thing, besides the premise, is how the difficulty levels up with you - this is a cool idea and makes you play carefully but it does tend to leave you unfulfilled when you have your best run and still can't reach the last level and realize your chances of reaching it in future runs just got worse. As you progress you also unlock challenges, which are mostly just frustrating, and perks for the different powerups. The stealth aspect is clever, you have to balance eating furniture and leaving furniture to hide behind and block lasers. All the obstacles work really well - except the skull bots, they're really unpredictable and difficult to evade. Unless you flow like water they will annoy the crap out of you in the later levels where there can be 6+ of them.

In short, this game is worth playing but you should catch it on sale.

PS - check out 2DArray's earlier game Company of Myself, it's a really awesome free flash game that'll make you ponder life, the universe and everything.

A fantastic stealth based Rogue Like game. I picked it up on sale, butwith the game play I've gotten out of it, I'd stillh ave payed full price. A lot of stealth games rely on basic mechanics that can get stale after a while, or don't cause a lot of tensions. The ones that do it right make for really stressful moments, and Not the Robots nails it on every level. Every time you screw up, you know that you should have done something differently, and it's pretty much your fault. The tension that's created for the AI looking for you is fantastic, making you on the edge of your seat repeatedly saying "please don't look here please don't look here". Honestly, I'm not coming up with a lot of negatives for the game, it does most elements well and is a game that is great to play if you want to kill time or even just get your heart pumping.

tl;dr -> If you want to play as a sadistic Roomba gone mad with a binge eating disorder (without the purging), then this is your game! 11/10 power to the robots, ♥♥♥♥ the humans!

A good friend gave me this game, and I now want to (secretly) kill him for that. Not the Robots is easily one of the best staples for the rogue-like genres. The game literally punishes you for playing and levelling up.

I love it.

If you like rogue-likes, action/stealth-based gameplay, eating furniture, and being relentlessly punished, then you MUST play this game. Seriously, any rogue-like lover/enthusiast has to try this game. You will not be disappointed.

The aesthetics are good - the amount of detail in the environment and different furniture types is well-done. The music and sounds are decent, however, I quickly muted all sounds and played my own. The soundtrack makes me think of old school elevator music, but I did feel like it added to the vibe of the game appropriately. There are random sound bites you can find that add a bit of extra lore to the game, and they are interesting if you take the time to listen.

The controls are simple and easy to familiarize yourself with. There is no tutorial, but feedback is given when you first start to explain how to get going. The learning curve is minimal to brutal, depending on your experience with rogue-likes. I unlocked an extra difficulty level, so my slider currently has 6 levels to choose from (trust me, the max difficulty I can play on is ridiculous and sadistic). There is a main campaign, operations, and challenges (the latter two are a bit similar) - adding massive replayability to the game. I've played with both the keyboard&mouse and a controller, and this is one of the few games where I actually prefer the keyboard&mouse combo, but this is a matter of preference. The game is very responsive with either.

During gameplay, you must progress through different buildings, each with a total of 2 floors. Every even-numbered building has sentries, which patrol the area and will attack you on sight. I have made it up to level 6, then died horribly. Your goal (initially) is to eat enough furniture to satisfy your counter at the bottom right of your screen - once you do this, you may return to the teleporter/elevator you spawned in to proceed to the next area. Larger pieces count for more points, however, they can also act as valuable cover against hazards like lazers (shoot out and move in a circle pattern) and sentries. Whenever you start a floor, you are able to look around the map with what looks like a camera feed before deploying with spacebar - and this is extremely helpful when sentries are patrolling near your starting area (you can wait for a better opportunity before spawning).

Items, bonuses, and health may be present in the floor. You can initially carry only one item, however, a "+1 to max inventory slot" bonus exists. You can eat items (blue or light blue boxes) if you want a different one - in fact, you get a bonus to your score for eating a 1-up. Items may also include things like teleport (I only recently realized you can hold the mouse down and literally teleport anywhere in the map), armor (decreases damage taken from all hazards), and sprint (brief speed boost). There are upgraded versions of most items (light blue boxes), which are unlocked as you gain experience from playing (more on this later). Bonuses are in green boxes and can only be accessed once you fulfil the floor requirements (the elevator and your gauges will shine green when you can exit the level). Bonuses can include things like score/experience multipliers (always increases by .50%) and scanners, which will reveal a random item box per level for each scanner you possess. Health is stackable, however, there is a decreasing upper limit depending on the difficulty you are playing on - in normal (easiest), you start with 100hp and the max is 200.

As you progress through buildings, you will encounter additional floor requirements besides your increasing "hungry count" (how much furniture you need to eat). First, you will also need to touch markers in descending order - you initially only have to go from 3 to 1, but later will have to go from 5 to 1. Combined with the presence of sentries, this can be quite the daunting task. If you can make it past these buildings, the checkpoint requirement will be swapped with a "tagging" one (the tagger will take an inventory slot but can be dropped and picked up again at will) - here, you will have to tag every hazard (except for sentries) on the floor. Sounds fun, right?

Yes, if you are a masochist.

Now, on to the best part, and the element that makes this one of my favorite rogue-likes. Whenever you die, your score/experience is calculated and you slowly level up (multipliers are given based on the difficulty you play on). You get bonuses to your score/experience for doing things like: eating a 1-up, getting a "max food" (eat all furniture on the floor) buff, or achieving a "no damage" run (do not lose a single HP). As you level up, you will unlock things like better items (chance of upgraded items spawning on a floor) and new items. Cool!

But, wait. There's more.

I mentioned the game literally punishes you for playing.

You can be the worst player, unable to even advance through the first floor/building. BUT, you will still eventually level up.

Most levelling up bonuses are "negative." One of my first unlocks was a laser wall hazard that is randomly added to the room. Eventually, I also unlocked an advanced laser wall (more damage). The game taunts you by having a witty hint at the end of the experience bar (ex: a familiar enemy, but stronger {not verbatim, unlocks a stronger sentry}). Just when you think the game is getting difficult, it constantly curb stomps you and keeps things refreshing with added elements. There are game hints during the loading screen, and apparently beating the game unlocks a first-person mode. Ridiculous.

Overall, Not the Robots plays exactly how I would expect a staple rogue-like to. In fact, it far surpasses any of my expectations. Any and all rogue-like enthusiasts must give this game a try.

There are really few gameplay mechanics. You'll have to eat office furnitures avoiding security drones and laser. To do so you can crouch to hide, use bonus items you picked up. And that's pretty much it. Simple yet effective.

Really well balanced procedural level generation. The difficulty grows up painlessly, there is no big spike in the difficulty curve. Every level feels different and makes sense. It feels pretty organic.

The story is told thourght log journal you'll gather throught your multiple runs.So if you want to know everything you'll have to play it multiple times. Yet the story is completly facultative. It' worth noting that the audio dubbing of the logs are nailed too.

Visually and aurally, the ambience is really quiet, because of this you'll press the "new game" button multiple times without noticing it.

Controls are tight.

And there is even a touch of humor every now and then, in the logs, on the poster, etc

Plus, there are multiple game modes, challenge levels, "campaign", and classic proccedural levels.

Not great but certainly far from bad, a neat little game about being a stealthy robot who eats all the furniture and appliances in offices. There are a few hazards and obstacles to avoid, the game throws out different powers for you to pick up and use to make your way around the level easier and your health carries over from floor to floor.

In a sense it is something of a roguelike, especially considering the overarching levelling system that slowly unlocks more powers and upgrades along with the randomly generated floors.

Fun to mess around with and for the right person it may just scratch the right itch. I wouldn't be racing out to buy a copy any time soon but if it's cheap or you get it in a bundle it's worth throwing in an hour or two for a laugh.

Very nice and smooth game controls. Simple game style, but manages to keep you on edge. The satisfaction of the furniture being destroyed is just beyond what I would have expected. Add this with randomly generated game design, different game modes, added obstacles, and side objective, you get an great game for a cheap price.

This game is amazing! I absolutly love it! It's fun, entertaining, a little dark and easy to learn. I'm a little sad it's so cheap, when i saw it was only 0.99 on sale it made me wonder if it was that good a game. But i got it and I love it, it has a bit more mysterious and interesting storey than i expected. If you see this game when it isn't on sale i'd still recommend it, support the developer as he has made some other really great games. All in all i love this game and would recommend it. 10/10

Not The Robots, is a tactic based game where you are a robot an you just eat peoples furniture. after 1-5 mins of nom nom nom you should get full and then you just get back to that elevator where u came from.

I love this game! It has randomly generated levels, different game modes, added obstacles, and side objectives, you get a great game with a lot of re-playability. It looks very nice, has smooth game controls, and has a simple game style, but manages to keep you on edge. There is also the satisfaction of the destroying furniture, lol. 7/10

You play as a a thin robot who has an appetitie for office furniture. Your goal is to consume a certain amount of furniture before moving to the exit to move onto the next room. The problem though, is that there are plenty of traps, guard bots and towers which try to destroy you. This is where the stealth element plays a factor. You have no weapons to defend yourself, however you can avoid enemy partrols by hiding behind office furniture (yes the ones you need to consume) and crouching. Crouching limits you visibility to patrols, but also reduces your movement speed. There are also items you can pick up which can heal you, make you invisible, create cover etc. Some such items require you consume a certain amount of furniture before you can use them again. When you are spotted by sentry bot you won't die immeditely, instead you will be gunned down by them unless you can find cover quickly. After you die, your score will be used to unlock new items, upgrades and game modes when you have scored enough amoungst multiple play throughs (this is a good factor in keeping you playing the game overe and over again).

There isn't much story to the game. As said previously, your basically a robot who has to consume a certain amount of office furniture in each room. After a certain amounts of rooms are cleared, you move onto the next building which has more rooms to clear. The closest resemblance to one in the game are audio recordings which tell a tale about some office workers. However, the problem is that you won't have a clue what is going on until you have all the recordings.

In the game, there is limited audio. During gamplay 'quiet' music is played, which is alright because it's a stealth game. However, when you are spotted and hunted by sentries the music doesn't change at all. As such there is a loss of protential to create a more tense atmosphere for players to try not to get spotted. The only voice acting in the game are audio recordings, but they are spoken in 'Robotic monotone' and don't sound great at all.

The level design is good. In the early levels you find yourself in a small room with a couple of towers, small food goal and relatively easy to finish. However as you progress through the campaign, you will face more enemies, larger rooms and more complex goals (ie having to to consume food and forfill a sequenc in order to proceed). There is plenty of room to maneuver and items to hide behind, which is excelltn for a stealth game as it gives you opportunity to plan your route.

I guess the game is alright, but for some reason I wasn't compelled to keep playing this game unlike other rogue-likes. The game may not get you hooked, but you can can pick this up if you REALLY like stealth gameplay with limited story.

You're a robot in an office building run by a rival corporation. You avoid detection and eat enough furniture to progress to the next level of the office building. Rinse. Repeat.

:)

Seriously oddball premise with a rock solid, if basic, execution. Few bells & whistles, it sticks to the core concept of sneaking around an office floor, avoiding detection from enemy robots or lasers etc, with you having to literally eat the furniture (thus reducing the cover available!) to progress.

It's got procedural generated levels, a nice big toolbox of mission types & problems to overcome, and it presents itself really well given the premise & obviously small budget origins, making me laugh more than once.